The ring

An inscribed gold ring sat on an ornate table in the red room. It had an inset circle, composed of jade or a similar substance, which was inscribed with an insignia from the petroglyph on the wall of Owl Cave. The symbol somewhat resembled two peaks surrounding a central diamond, or an owl in flight.[1]

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In September 1805, the Corps of Discovery made contact with the Nez Perce tribe in northwestern Washington and treated with their chief Twisted Hair. The chief told Meriwether Lewis about a sacred grove above the nearby falls where several white men lived, and gave him three bizarre artifacts they had given to the tribe. One of these was an inscribed gold ring, which Lewis sketched for President Thomas Jefferson in a dispatch. After visiting the sacred place, Lewis destroyed the map but wrote that he intended to keep the ring. Lewis further reported that Twisted Hair had allowed him to take the ring with him, but at the same time also emphatically warned him to keep the ring in a small leather pouch at all times and to never try to wear it on his fingers.[2]

After Lewis' mysterious death at Grinder's Stand in October 1809, the leather pouch which Priscilla Grinder had seen him worrying the night before his death was found in his possessions, empty. Garland Briggs posited that the traitor General James Neely had a hand in Lewis' death and speculated that he might have taken the ring for himself.[2]

In August 1945, L. Ron Hubbard attended a Thelema gathering at the so-called "Parsonage," the Pasadena home of rocket scientist and Thelemite Jack Parsons. During a conversation between the two that Hubbard later recounted for Congressman Richard Nixon, Hubbard noticed that Parsons was fiddling with an inscribed gold ring on his left ring finger, as he expounded on the tenets of Thelema and the nature of alchemy.[2]

In early 1988, the ring was in the possession of Teresa Banks, an underage waitress and prostitute living in Deer Meadow. She was photographed wearing it on her left hand. By the night of Banks' murder, however, it had gone missing.[1]

While conducting Banks' autopsy, FBI agents Chet Desmond and Sam Stanley noticed the indentation on Banks' finger where the ring had been, and asked Sheriff Cable if he had found it in her belongings, to no avail. When Desmond returned to the Fat Trout Trailer Park the next evening, he saw Teresa's ring on a pile of dirt beneath the trailer where Mrs. Chalfont and her grandson lived, and reached out to take it. Desmond was soon afterward reported missing.[1]

The week before Laura Palmer's death, she and her father Leland were accosted on the road by MIKE's host Philip Gerard, who was wearing the ring on his right pinky. He waved it for Laura to see while trying to shout to her that Leland was BOB's host, but she couldn't hear over Leland gunning the engine. She later remembered seeing the ring on Teresa's hand the year before. In a dream, the arm waved his hand over the ring and then extended it to Laura, as Dale Cooper warned her not to take it. When she woke, she was terrified to find it in her hand, but it then disappeared.[1]

After Laura and Ronette were abducted by BOB and brought to the train graveyard in the woods, MIKE threw the ring into the car after Ronette escaped. Laura placed it on her hand, causing Leland to scream in despair and ask, "Don't make me do this!" He then stabbed Laura to death.[1]

In March 1989, a "jade green ring" was documented among Douglas Milford's belongings following his death the night after his wedding, and apparently returned to his widow, Lana Milford. Some years later, Lana dated a "notorious resident of a certain eponymous tower on Fifth Avenue" in New York City. In a photograph of the two taken at a charity event obtained by Tamara Preston, this man appeared to be wearing a green ring on his left ring finger, although the resolution was too poor to verify its identity.[4]

Dougie Jones, a tulpa of Dale Cooper, wore the ring on his left hand at the time of his death. Just before he was returned to the waiting room, Jones experienced his left arm going numb and became violently ill. Once there, he began to shrink and the ring fell off his hand. Jones then turned into a black cloud of smoke and shrunk into a gold orb. MIKE collected the orb and the ring, returning the latter to its table.[5]

After tracking down Ray at the farm, the doppelganger ordered him to put on the ring, and then shot him after obtaining Jeffries' location. The ring disappeared, then landed on the floor of the waiting room. Ray's corpse later appeared there as well, and MIKE once again placed the ring back on its table.[7]

Following Dale Cooper's return to full consciousness, MIKE appeared before him. MIKE revealed that the doppelganger was still at large in the world, and then gave the ring to Cooper. Cooper hid the ring beneath his pillow just as Janey-E and Sonny Jim Jones arrived.[8]